


Green Eyes, Dark Glasses

by NienteZero



Category: Black Books (TV), Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Alcohol, Jealousy, M/M, Other, bookshops, ineffable stupidity, not selling books
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-19
Updated: 2019-10-19
Packaged: 2020-12-24 08:57:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,164
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21096818
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NienteZero/pseuds/NienteZero
Summary: Crowley does not take kindly to Aziraphale's latest young friend.





	Green Eyes, Dark Glasses

“Urgh,” the young human said vaguely.

This was not the response that Crowley had come to expect when he manifested demonic powers in the form of a horrifying shift of his visage to one with entirely more and larger teeth, and red eyes, and -well, does one really have to enumerate the features of a ghastly demonic manifestation?

“Urgh.”

Crowley manifested again, harder.

“Would you stop all that at once?” the human said, pulling a pair of dark glasses from the pocket of his capacious shambles of a coat and jamming them on his face, not before scowling crossly at Crowley.

Aziraphale bustled from the back room of his shop, carrying a bottle and two glasses. He smiled, perforce angelically, and said, “Ah, I see you two have met.” Somehow, he was now carrying three glasses.

Aziraphale had been in existence for six thousand years, and had certainly developed a type over the course of those millennia. He wasn’t aware of this type, but anyone else observing the two black-clad, disheveled, cranky looking, sunglasses wearing entities now in his shop may have been able to make an educated guess.

Actually, only one of the two entities was really his type. But if that one had seen the other lounging lazily in Aziraphale’s chair, in Aziraphale’s shop, and made some assumptions, well, a demon could be forgiven for taking an instant dislike.

“Mister Black, this is my dear friend Mister Crowley,” Aziraphale said fussing around pouring whiskey into glasses. “Crowley, Bernard Black.”

Crowley loomed forward menacingly, a hint of brimstone curling from his lips.

Bernard Black performed a negligible half-sit-up, his right hand waving vaguely toward a handshake before flopping back in the chair with a grunt. He mumbled something that even the nicest person would have been hard put to understand as “pleased to meet you.”

Aziraphale passed around glasses of whiskey and raised his in a toast before sitting down. Crowley thought about continued looming, but settled for leaning on the corner of the desk. Bernard was still slumping, though half of the whiskey was gone from his glass.

"Lovely place you've got here," Bernard mumbled, looking around from under his shaggy curls to take in the sheer unmoving solidity of the book piles. They looked pleasantly undisturbed by the rifling fingers of customers.

"Quiet," he added.

Aziraphale beamed.

"Thank you," he said. A frown creased his forehead, "although, sometimes. It's quite disturbing, people come in and want to -"

Bernard finished his sentence in chorus with him "buy books!"

They both made a face that looked as if they had bitten into what looked like a perfectly tasty Braeburn apple that turned out to be a Red Delicious.

"Ugh, customers," Bernard said.

"Grubby and impatient. Why must they persist in fondling all the books and asking dull-witted questions?" Aziraphale added.

"Always... wanting to know answers to things?" Bernard gestured vaguely as if people asking questions was the most unreasonable possible thing in the world.

"My dear boy," Aziraphale said, leaning over to top up Bernard's glass, "I'm so glad that we met."

Crowley gently lit the bottom of Bernard's trousers on fire.

Not a big fire. Just little irritated wisps of flame licking at Bernard's ankle.

The worst of it was that he didn't seem to notice at all. 

Too busy gazing soulfully at Crowley's angel.

Well. Gazing soulfully was probably coming over a bit too jealous, because it was really more of an unfocused stare through the mop of curls while the two of them moaned about the travails of owning shops that were sometimes rudely interrupted by people arriving wishing to transact business.

Crowley frowned and flicked the flames back out before Aziraphale noticed them.

The shop door opened. The head of a man appeared around it, blonde and shaggy with a tightly trimmed goatee and long hair that streamed down his back.

"Er, Bernard?" it said.

Bernard didn't pay any attention, but Crowley did. He stood up and opened the door all the way to reveal the rest of the man. He was wearing a tan leather jacket that Crowley had definitely last seen in the 1970s, and wearing it well. 

"Are you a friend of Mister Black's?" Crowley asked, at his most charming self, "You must come and have a drink with us."

"Ah - yeah, I was just looking for Bernard, thought I saw him come in here." 

"What do you want, Manny? Can't you see I'm conferrin' with a fellow professional?" Bernard said rather waspishly, waving his glass of whiskey vaguely in Aziraphale's direction.

Crowley smiled and steered Manny toward a comfortable pair of small armchairs that were miraculously right where he wanted to sit. 

"Shall we leave them to their nonsense?" he said to Manny, "are you a whisky man too, ooh, or I know, Mister Fell always keeps a bottle of excellent aged tokay around."

Manny seemed to light up under Crowley's attention. Fallen angels were known for having that effect if they wanted to, look at bloody Lucifer - light bringer - making a whole thing out of it. But Manny also seemed to light up like a person who was used to being spoken to waspishly.

Crowley could work with that. If Aziraphale was going to ignore him in favor of this rumpled haystack of a distaster who hadn't yet taken his sunglasses off inside the shop, then Crowley could play at the same game.

"Sssso, tell me all about yourself, Manny," he leaned in to the other man's space.

"Well, er, I'm-"

"What are you doing over there Manny?" Bernard said sharply. His attention was suddenly focused on Crowley. Ah, well. If menacing hadn't worked to get Bernard Black's attention, apparently seducing the human right in front of his friend did.

"Having a glass of port, I think," Manny said. He looked confused to find himself in a comfortable chair with a rather good glass of a fortified wine in his hand, and a looming attractive person in tight proximity to him.

"Having a glass of - sitting around having a glass of port - you can't be sitting here all day - we have a shop to run - those books aren't going to sell themselves- I don't believe it - come on now and get back to work," Bernard said, unfolding himself out of his slouched position suddenly, with the effect of an umbrella with a number of broken spines being opened in a small space.

Aziraphale looked bewildered. Manny looked downright shocked at the suggestion that Bernard might sell a book.

"Oh, well, if you must leave," Aziraphale said, "do come along and have a little drink any time, my dear boy."

Bernard already had Manny half way out of the shop. He sketched an extremely vague wave back over his shoulder without ceasing his monologue of light scolding at Manny.

Crowley turned to Aziraphale with a small, delighted smile on his face, "Well, it looks like it's just the two of us, after all," he said.


End file.
